Letters - September 18, 2018

I inwardly fume when I regularly hear the comment “no-one writes letters any more”.

What a stupid, sweeping statement!

I most certainly do write letters regularly – to friends in many different parts of the country where I have lived, to my son and family in Surrey, my daughter and family in Nottinghamshire, also one of my New Zealand grand-daughters, now working in London.

However, perhaps because I am now somewhat ancient (despite the fact that, in another life, I was a shorthand/audio typist latterly working at a very busy police station), I really struggle occasionally with TV problems but, thankfully, I have an extremely helpful, understanding neighbourhood family!

I have kept numerous letters which I feel are absolute treasures, such as the one written by my father-in-law when he was in the Army during the 1914-18 war on the Somme.

Thankfully, he survived, but I doubt his wartime experiences would have done had they not been recorded, thanks to pen and paper!

Mrs EH Bell

Address supplied

UTILITIES

More means less, not more

The announcement that United Utilities forecasts a reduction in domestic water supply bills of £45 “in real terms” seems, at first sight, most welcome.

Back in the late 1980s, Conservative MP Michael Howard, a barrister by profession, was Minister for Water and Planning and was responsible for the sale of the publicly-owned water suppliers, an act which many view as the unwarranted expropriation of resources paid for and owned by local ratepayers.

The Minister claimed that privatisation would result in lower water bills for the general populace and I well recollect his being asked at interview to confirm this claim.

Michael smiled, and gave a masterly lawyers’ response: water bills would in fact go up rather than down but not by as much as they would if the suppliers remained in public ownership, therefore “more” actually meant “less”.

Would anyone like to give me odds that the United Utilities “reduction” will or will not follow similar lines?

M.T.Mynott

Address supplied

POLITICS

Labour policies will not work

Jeremy Corbyn, raised in a rural manor house, preaches peace yet supports some of the world’s most brutal dictators and has designs on becoming the Prime Minister of the UK with Mr McDonnell as his chancellor.

Mr Corbyn’s economics supports rent control, renationalization of railways, water and energy supplies, the ramping up corporation tax from 19 to 26 per cent and increasing income tax for the so-called better off.

Popularist policies all, but what will be the consequences for the hard working couple with a family who are trying to pay off their mortgage or struggling to get on to the property ladder?

Rent controls will hurt the poorest as investment falls reducing the quantity and quality of housing while house prices continue to rise.

Increasing the income tax rate on those earning more than £80,000 will encourage many of the 1.3million voters who already pay more than 40 per cent of all income tax to leave the country, so reducing the tax base.

Increasing corporation tax after Brexit will force yet more international companies to leave our shores further reducing the tax base and increasing a presently very low unemployment rate.

An increase in the national debt of more than £150bn or 10 per cent of the national debt will follow the nationalization of utilities, transport and the Royal Mail.

“All property is theft” chant Momentum supporters, who will push for the seizure of private property– are our homes at risk – and will it drive away international investment.

To avoid this cataclysmic collapse of our country’s prosperity we must band together to resist Mr Corbyn and his concept of economics and world politics.

Bob Francis

Via email

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